42 comments:

We used to bring guns to school when I was in high school. Every truck in the parking lot had a rifle in the rifle rack, and some of us would go kill a deer during lunch break. They was a large infestation when the county limited hunting permits for a few years.

My nephew got a 1 day suspension when they found a pocket knife during a random locker search. He went fishing with my brother, which was a better way to spend the day anyway, than with the baby sitters at the school.

Prosecutors all have dreams of higher office. More felonies, makes the grannies feel safe in their nursing homes.

When more people start voting than people in retirement homes, then things may get back to normal.

Although I suspect we went over the cliff already, and the only way back is a revolution. Luckily I'll be dead in a few years, and you fuckers will have to deal with it.

Seems not quite fair to charge him 12 years after you declined to charge him for lack of evidence. They will try to put into the case evidence of other conduct and under the rules of evidence will prob be allowed to since same MO, etc.

If he is acquitted a lot of people will conclude that all the other women are lying.

Deferring to your legal expertise presumably the prosecutor also knows this so why bring the charges unless there is some political motive for doing so? 9 years ago the conclusion was there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute so what has changed now other than the politics?

My guess is that DA is bringing charges so he can run for reelection without being accused of sweeping the issue under the rug.

I think Cosby is guilty, but will be acquitted due to the state's burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (However, I'm not convinced all the accusations against him are true, especially accusations made AFTER the initial publicity.)

If this is a revival of the complaint of the Canadian woman I'm of two minds. First, in so far as it validates what had to take some courage in reporting the alleged assault back then, well, good. It's hard to imagine though what new view of the evidence warrants this, other than a new view that an existing belief in his guilt has so permeated the culture that they simply have a shot at succeeding now. And that is exactly the sort of thing the legal system should guard against, not leverage. So although he's almost certainly guilty I hope that the result truly reflects the specific evidence in this case. That said, there's so much smoke perhaps there is an argument that any jurisdiction where the statute of limitations has not run out has some sort of an obligation to the collective to proceed if even marginally warranted. I don't know. Tough one.

Let's see, she waits a year to report and also changed her story. Without the inclusion of "other bad acts," the case is a dead bang loser.

Will he be convicted because of the facts in this case or because a bunch of women say he's a bad guy - sometimes decades later. How about sentencing if he's convicted? Interesting legal and ethical questions for a judge. Of course in Pennsylvania most judges are Democrats so probably not so much. Just a matter of the prevailing wind.

For one thing, American juries are likely a lot less favorable toward the argument that "she had it coming". Plus, a judge has unsealed the depositions from the civil settlement, which makes a lot of new evidence available. And, Cosby is not willing to let the matter rest. The stupid bastard decided he would clear his name, by suing one of his victims for defamation;

"On December 15, Cosby sued Beverly Johnson, a pioneering African-American supermodel who accused Cosby in 2014 of sexual misconduct that she says happened years ago; Johnson says the comedian drugged and tried to rape her at her New York home in the mid-1980s."

How do you suppose he picked her? To sue, I mean, not to rape. It's pretty clear Cosby wasn't at all picky about who he raped. But I guess that his lawyers decided she was the most vulnerable to the sort of abuse they are trained to employ.

It is one thing for a prosecutor to refuse to take a dicey case to trial. It is another to let a hardened and inveterate criminal continue his abuse by dragging his innocent victims before a court in an attempt to silence them by bankruptcy.

So you are going out on that limb? All 50+ of them are gold-digging liars? You seem like a pretty sharp guy, MK. Go read this article in NYmag. Look at their pictures. Take your time, there are a lot of them. Then come back and tell me Bill Cosby never raped anyone, and all 35 of these women had nothing better to do with what's left of their lives than lie like rugs to punish Dr. Huxtable for dissing black America.

http://tinyurl.com/pwj5h6p

As I recall, Garage was right about Woody Allen, too. What is it with the rest of you guys? You don't think men are capable of abusing a vulnerable woman? You must all be saints, right? Or eunuchs? You probably think ISIS doesn't rape their Yazidi sex slaves.

Unfortunately, the last two or three years have seen an epidemic of women claiming to be raped by this person or that and, as it turns out, many of them were lying. Some for twisted payback, some because they were mental, some for money. But there has been an epidemic that has not cause, it was simply an eruption of victims. So many of us are skeptical of fifty women coming out in such a short period of time to claim they were abused (raped? seduced?) by a (wait....wait....wait) rich guy.

Why are you all so eager to put Cosby in jail? Everyone is acting as if they are going to get a million dollars if he is indicted.

It's some sort of weird self-righteousness and sadism to me.

There is virtually nothing the DA can go on. Cosby got quaaludes for sex, but unless he admitted to hiding them in drinks, he did nothing more than what Hollywood and New Yorkers did (and keep doing). The women admitted they took them (did he lie and say to them it was aspirin)? And why didnt any of the women go to the police or at least the hospital with their accusations (I hate to say it, but Cosby is still a black man and Americans still think they are monsters). And why did some of them *choose* to stay with them for a week or more after they were attacked.

Oh I think it's likely he's guilty of multiple sexual assaults. Though proving such these many years later will be problematic. But I hope you are not "with Garage" on his remarks and thought process.

Simply put, Cosby has skated on these allegations for YEARS. So, why resurrect the issue now? And why did all the silent victims or others** come forth now? Not the 33rd woman, but the second, third, fourth until Cosby's good will was exhausted and the piling on began. Whether it is the emphasis on "rape culture" * or his conservative-lite comments that re-drew the bulls eye on him and brought out all the other accusers I do not know.

* If so, and media can not squash the backlash, Hillary is in trouble.

** I would suggest Janice Dickinson s an example. The term attention whore was custom made for her.

"So many of us are skeptical of fifty women coming out in such a short period of time to claim they were abused (raped? seduced?) by a (wait....wait....wait) rich guy."

JAORE said...

"And why did all the silent victims or others** come forth now? Not the 33rd woman, but the second, third, fourth until Cosby's good will was exhausted and the piling on began."

You guys need to read that article. These women aren't after money. Many of them say they have come forward simply to support the others. Because they know who is lying, and it is not the accusers.

Imagine that you were raped, by someone you admired and trusted, when you were young and vulnerable. For most of your life, you have been watching your rapist receive the adulation of the entire nation. Now someone else has accused him of raping her, in exactly the way he raped you. And he is calling her a liar, and has sicced his lawyers and his detectives on her, and is trying to trash her reputation and convince everyone she knows that she is crazy or worse. Would you "pile on"? Would you have the courage?

Read the article, and look at their faces. Then tell me they are all liars. Not just one or two of them. Tell me every last one of them is a stone cold, lying bitch.

As to Garage's "thought process", I gather he attacks Bill Cosby because he believes Cosby is being defended by the Right. Like a stopped clock, he is right twice a day.

Jason said..."Jupiter? Why would looking at their faces change my opinion about whether they are lying? This seems like an irrational criteria."

Because you are thinking they are a bunch of sex kittens. And maybe they were, once. But they are now a bunch of dignified-looking grandmothers, who flew to NYC to have their pictures taken so they could tell the story about something that happened to them, a long time ago, that they have never gotten over. And I defy you to look at those pictures, and then tell me that it is still your opinion that every last one of them, all 35, are low-down, conniving liars. Because if even one of them is telling the truth, Bill Cosby is not.

And their grandmotherly appearance, as opposed to looking like young sex kittens now, many years after the fact, is a rational criteria for assessing their truthfulness how? Sex kittens don't report rapes truthfully? Dignified-looking grandmothers don't lie? Huh?

It is not my opinion that all 35 of them are lying. But looking at their photos is a really stupid way to come to that conclusion, or any other, about their testimony.

... presumably the prosecutor also knows this so why bring the charges unless there is some political motive for doing so? 9 years ago the conclusion was there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute so what has changed now other than the politics?

12/30/15, 10:48 AM"

The statute of limitations was about to run out.

It was now or never. On a failed prosecution, he can say he tried. If he lets the statute of limitations run out... he's a part of the rape culture, or something.

My take: Biggest loser is Bill Clinton. No way he doesn't get mentioned as the "other Bill" in all this.